The Madhya Pradesh High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed seeking direction to the Haj Committee of India to consider and decide the representation dated 08.05.2023 made on behalf of the petitioners for change of the Embarkation Point from “Bhopal” to “Mumbai”.
The Petitioner further seeks the following relief”:-
(ii) To issue the direction to the respondents that the deposit made by the petitioners shall be subject to the final outcome of the instant writ petition.
(iii) To issue the direction to the respondent authorities that in case the respondent authorities favourably consider the representation submitted by the petitioners and allot Embarkation Point from “Mumbai”, the petitioners shall be entitled to get the refund of the excess amount deposited by them.
The basic contention of the counsel for the petitioners is that the circular dated 06.05.2023 issued by the Haj Committee of India provides for charging an excessive amount from the Haj pilgrims having their embarkation point at Bhopal as compared to the pilgrims having their embarkation point from other cities. The discriminatory attitude has been adopted by the respondent no.1 in respect of the different embarkation points. No reasons have been assigned as to why there is a difference of amount between various embarkation points. In the circumstances, clarification/explanation needs to be called from respondents and also to change the application of the pilgrim for change of his/her embarkation application to Mumbai instead of Bhopal and charge the amount accordingly.
On perusal of the petition and the documents annexed along with it, the Division Bench of Justice Rajendra Kumar Verma and Justice Avanindra Kumar Singh noted that the petitioners have no locus to file this public interest litigation, as they are neither beneficiary of the scheme nor going to perform the Hajj pilgrimage.
In case, any individual has grievance, he may approach the Court by filing separate individual petition, otherwise a large number of applicants would approach the Haj Authorities which would create chaos and the planned time table for Haj Pilgrimage would get disturbed to a great extent. A general direction is being sought by the petitioners under the garb of this public interest litigation, which cannot be countenanced. It is not known as to how many pilgrims would apply under the common order and wish to change their embarkation points. In view of the above, no public interest is involved so as to entertain this public interest litigation , the Court observed.
Madhya Pradesh High Court dismisses PIL seeking change of embarkation point from Bhopal to Mumbai for Hajis
